-fixed bugs with goals more emphasis on military training
-attacks signals work more often
-added a counter-meso strategy - not well tested
-added a counter-monk strategy - not well tested
-added TSA for initial attack

-Improved intelligence and efficiency, including Feudal Age time
-Attack rules are more intelligent
-Upgrades are researched better
-Contains building construction bugs especially with farms, unfortunately

-Version 1.0 - 2 January, 2010:

-First edition. Created for the 2010 AoKH AI Tournament. Long Feudal stay and aggressive
but poor attacking rules.

I'm going to work on an update somewhat soon, so stay posted. If any of you have suggestions for improvement please post them.

[Edited on 01/23/10 @ 01:52 AM]

PossidonOfficial Reviewer

Posted on 04/02/10 @ 07:04 AM

Rating

4.5

Leif Ericson AI was by Leif Ericson’s entry to the 2009 AI Tournament.

Rating: 4.5
Leif Ericson AI feels a lot like an ordinary Computer AI but is a lot harder, stronger and better. It advances to the Feudal Age in about 15 minutes and then to the Castle in about 28 minutes. I played against 4 of them and found it one of the most enjoyable Standard Games I’ve played in a long time.

It makes its fist attack about 30 minutes into the game. In its first attack it tends to send in a lot of Elite Skirmishers, Archers and Spearmen. The attacks of the AI are strong and quite hard to defend against. The only problem is that to use the AI you must set the difficulty to Hard. This makes the game, in my opinion, too hard.

The Leif Ericson AI expands its town very quickly. After it advanced to the Feudal Age I used Marco polo to see what it had done. The town was covering a wide area and had already upgraded its Militias to Men-at-Arms, it had surrounded its town Centre with hundreds of farms and it had started to build Spearmen and Archers. The town had doubled it self when I checked it in Castle Age.

There are a few problems with the AI though. It has only been tested on Arabia map so there isn’t much choice in scenery. It can only be played on hard, which makes the game too hard. It can only have the victory settings as Standard or Conquest, which isn’t the worst in the world but there are some people who like to use the other victory settings as well.

Additional Comments:
Overall Leif Ericson AI is a great Viking AI which provides are great and enjoyable Game play and has a lot great aspects to it.

4.5 out of 5.0. A great Score!

Possidon

Leif EricsonStaffFile Author

Posted on 04/14/10 @ 07:23 PM

Thank you for making that review Possidon.

I understand that many people like to be able to play multiple maps and victory conditions, but it takes a lot of effort to make an AI for all conditions. My intent was to make a strong Viking AI for land maps.

Look at the comments for reviewing AI Files from the Review Requests Thread:

"The first question to ask when rating an AI-File is what is the AI intended to do and how well does it perform in that specific area? There are AI-Files developed for many intents and purposes: for scenario design, training, specific maps (e.g. Arabia), death match, tournament, defensive/ aggressive files, water maps or land maps only, etc."

So, I would prefer you didn't mark my AI down because it doesn't play most maps and victory conditions. By all means, mention that you wish it could play more map conditions, but please don't mark the AI down because of that. You can still mark it down for other reasons though. :)

PopeychopsStaffOfficial Reviewer

Posted on 04/16/10 @ 10:10 AM

Rating

4.0

This review took place under the following conditions:
Random Land Map, Standard resources, Conquest, 200 Population limit, Moderate Difficulty.

Rating: 4
As the AI must play as vikings I chose my preferred civ, Goths, to combat it. As civilisation bonuses go, I probably have the better deal, as my cheap infantry flood is a late-game killer. Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to experience a late game with this.

Action Report:
My first map was Scandinavia. Not my preference.
After a terrible start, I marco'd after about 8 minutes to see if I even had any boars.
The script had generated them a long way from my TC, behind a line of forest. When I tried to lure them they ran away.
I resigned as the AI's score was vastly superior to my own at this point.

The second map was arabia. After a decent start I noticed the AI building a barracks on the edge of my Line of sight (not a good move)
My own attempts at forward building had been thwarted by a pack of wolves unusally close together, however my slightly late M@A rush was highly effective, as the AI had built two watch towers in places that didn't need defending and were easily avoidable. I managed to find the AI's gold, which was undefended, and was able to skirt past the TC and attack its stone. However, instead of using its market (which I found) to buy food for castle age and a fightback, it trained archers instead, and when I trained skirmishers and castled, it crumbled very quickly.
Once I had battering rams, it was game over.
Despite being an infantry Civilisation, at no point did it research Men at arms (it very sneakily built a barracks by my base and trained one militia right at the end).

The map managed to economise very well, as it was about attempting to build combat structures while I was rampaging around destroying everything. However, the lack of castle age (and technologies in general, the only one I had evidence of is loom), pretty much sealed its death.
It didn't strike as early as it could have, it failed to hide its barracks from my sight. Lastly, and most importantly, it feudaled quickly, but didn't ever get more than 20 villagers (society tab).

Additional Comments:
It will do well as practice for rushes, as it was quick to garrison in its TC, however it allowed me to get away with playing poorly the entire match. When I rushed it was often very sloppy, I lost several soldiers because I was distracted elsewhere on the map. It needs to get blacksmith and barracks techs in order to offer a more effective resistance, as well as train more villagers.
In difficulty, I consider this somewhat similar to moderate, as if I had allowed it to build up and advance it may have been much more powerful, comparitively.

[Edited on 04/17/10 @ 06:29 AM]

Leif EricsonStaffFile Author

Posted on 06/10/10 @ 02:07 AM

Updated to Leif Ericson 1.31. Includes significant updates, including rules for Coastal maps, team management, and TSA for some attacks. Please test and comment!